Perugina sausages

As I wander through the streets of the Old Town in Nice I try to imagine what they must have looked like 50, 100, 200 or 400 years ago (my building, a former monastery, dates from the early 1600s). The street names recall that these narrow lanes were once devoted to food: rue de la Poissonnerie (fish market street), rue de la Boucherie (butcher street), place de la Halle aux Herbes (herb market square). I can just picture the chaos of colors and sounds, the animals dangling from hooks and the fish still squirming in their baskets, like in the fish market on the Vieux Port in Marseille.
Traditional food shops are becoming increasingly scarce in the Old Town, and it was with a sinking feeling that I saw Boucherie Agu, a landmark butcher on the Cours Saleya, and Biscuiterie Toretti, a back street bakery that in the mornings only turned out the butteriest croissants and the best pissaladière from its wood fired oven, close for good within a few months of each other. Thankfully some wonderful food shops remain, among them Barale, a fresh pasta shop founded in 1892; Boucherie Viale, the smallest and friendliest butcher in the Old Town; Fenocchio, with its display of 96 ice cream flavors including tourte de blettes (a sweet Swiss chard tart); and Charcuterie Ghibaudo.

Dinna and Laurent, the young couple who run Charcuterie Ghibaudo, are the kind of people who give me hope for the future of the Old Town. Interestingly, they are not from here: Dinna, to my initial astonishment, is from Florida and Laurent is from northern France. They met in Florida, where Laurent was working as a chef, and moved to France to train at a charcuterie in suburb of Paris, then with another pork specialist in Savoie. When they found a narrow little boutique for rent in rue Pairolière that had been a charcuterie since 1870, they knew that they would settle in Nice.
For Laurent this was not a big leap - his family was in the business - but imagine the change for Dinna, who had been a beautician in Florida. She has adapted beautifully, with perfect French and a complexion to rival Marie Quatrehomme's. When customers accuse her of being an outsider (the Niçois are inclined to do that sort of thing), she retorts with the words, "I'm half Greek and half Italian, so my ancestors were probably here before yours." This is just the kind of feistiness that is required to run a business in Nice, though Dinna is also unfailingly cheerful and clearly loves her new life.
Even if Dinna and Laurent are relative newcomers to Nice, they have mastered all the local specialties: trulle (blood sausage with Swiss chard and rice), les petits farcis (stuffed vegetables) in summer, porchetta (pork stuffed with its meat, tripe and liver), and my all-time favorite sausage, the Perugina. It's safe to assume that these plump and meaty little sausage originally came from Perugia, one of many Italian traditions that took root in Nice. It can be eaten fresh, semi-dried or cured, and gets its zing from coarsely ground pepper. Laurent - who makes everything in the shop himself from whole pigs except the Parma ham and mortadella - flavors the Perugina with garlic or fennel, and I always choose fennel.

For the Niçois there is really only one way to cook Perugina sausages: with lentils. Yes, you can grill them or roast them in the oven (I've done this with strips of red pepper), but lentils are their most natural, and best, partner. I make this hearty dish no matter what the season, and feel justified in doing so since it is currently on the menu at La Merenda. Last time I was there for dinner, I sat next to a table of Italians who all ordered this dish - and they had been there for lunch the same day and ordered the same thing.
Last night's lentils with Perugina sausages were a simplified version of my usual recipe - I didn't have any celery to sauté with the carrots and onion, and my fridge was strangely bereft of flat parsley leaves for adding a splash of color at the end. I also like to add a couple of handfuls of slivered Swiss chard leaves a few minutes before the end of the cooking time. But there are times when you have to make do with what's in your fridge, especially when preparing peasant food. That said, it's important to use Puy lentils from the Auvergne or good quality green lentils, which hold their shape when cooked.
Sam, who has taken to assigning points for good parenting (did I mention that he is cheeky?), awarded me 97 points for this dish - and this is a boy who just a few months ago used to spit out lentils. Persistence really does pay off when it comes to kids and food.

Lentils with Perugina sausages
Serves 2-3

1 small red onion
1 medium carrot
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove
1 cup Puy lentils
3 cups water
2 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
6 Perugina sausages or your favorite Italian sausages
Salt and pepper, to taste
A handful of flat parsley leaves (if you have them!)
Your best olive oil, for drizzling

Dice the onion finely and thinly slice the carrot. Crush the garlic clove and remove the skin. Heat the olive oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and crushed garlic and sauté over medium-low heat until they are soft and just starting to turn golden.

Add the lentils, water, thyme and bay leaf. Partially cover the saucepan and cook for 10 minutes at a gentle bubble. Add the sausages and seasonings to taste, partially cover and cook for another 10-15 mins. The stew is done when the liquid starts to thicken - if this doesn't happen after 25 mins, remove the lid and let it reduce slightly at a gentle boil. To serve, remove the thyme and bay leaf. Cut the sausages in half lengthwise or into slices and arrange over the lentils. Sprinkle with chopped flat-leaf parsley (I used finely diced red onion and red pepper, since I had no parsley) and drizzle with your best olive oil.

Epaule d'agneau aux petits oignons

This dish started with a big bunch of spring onions, their papery skins just starting to form. Producer Louis Berthon, affectionately known to us as Loulou, saw me eyeing them at his stand. "Roasted with a lamb shoulder and a couple of tomatoes they are fantastic," he said.
I can always count on the producers at the Cours Saleya market to give me recipes that are free of time-consuming frills and flourishes. These farmers are proud to call themselves paysans (which is somehow a more dignified word than "peasant") and you would never catch them doing anything so fussy as peeling individual fava beans or pitting cherries for clafoutis.
It was Loulou, by the way, who recently told me - or should I say ordered me - to make a clafoutis with tart griottes rather than the sweeter burlat, leaving the pits in for their distinct almond flavor. I don't think I'll ever turn back, at least during the brief period when griottes are available.
Loulou is someone I associate more with fruit than vegetables: my fridge would feel empty without a slice of his almond-studded fig nougat, lightly perfumed with anise and lemon zest, or a jar of jam made with his own green tomatoes, mirabelle plums or blackberries. His vegetable production is small but so natural-tasting that on a Saturday I like to visit his stand before I look elsewhere.
I pumped him for details of his lamb recipe but it really was as simple as it sounded, with just the three main ingredients plunked into a roasting dish. My lamb shoulder came from Boucherie St-Antoine in rue Ste-Réparate, though I could just as easily bought it from the orange-tiled Fulchieri around the corner or the tiny but big-hearted Viale a few minutes' walk away. Lamb shoulder is just the right size for four to six people, unlike leg of lamb which feeds a crowd. It takes well to roasting, either deboned and rolled or with the big round shank bone left in, paysan-style, though I more often use it in stews and Moroccan tagines.
Even Sam, who is not normally a big meat-eater, gobbled up every bite of this dish. I could have served it with roasted potatoes, preferably the lovely pink-skinned ones from Loulou, but the natural juice from the meat and vegetables tasted particularly delicious without any starch to soak it up.

Epaule d'agneau aux petits oignons
Serves 4

1-2 bunches spring onions (about 8 onions per person)
2 tomatoes
1 lamb shoulder, with the hip bone removed but the larger shank bone left in
2 tbsp olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
A few sprigs of fresh or dried thyme

Peel the papery skins off the onions if necessary and cut off the stems. Cut the tomatoes into quarters.

Rub the lamb with 1 tbsp olive oil and season well with salt, pepper and thyme leaves.

Spread out the onions in a roasting dish, toss with 1 tbsp olive oil, and place the lamb on top. Surround the lamb with the tomato quarters.

Roast at 425 F (200 C) for about 1 hour, basting once or twice, until the lamb is well-browned on the outside and barely pink inside.

Set the meat aside to rest for about 10 mins before carving, keeping the vegetables in a warm place.